BC’s Mining Industry Running With Its Tailings Between Its Legs

BC’s Mining Industry Running With Its Tailings Between Its Legs

The Mount Polley Mine Environmental Disaster, as it’s soon and forevermore likely to be known, has thrown into sharp focus the incredible liability the mining industry faces whenever they decide to store a toxic swamp full of lead, cadmium, arsenic and whatever other delightful chemical combinations these elements can create. (Which is pretty much every time a copper/gold mine is built these days)

Yet BC Mining Companies continue to pressure governments, at home and abroad, for less and less environmental oversight. And when governments like the BC Liberals oblige, everyone loses.

(And if you think these are just the ravings of a left-of-center hippie cartoonist, read Stephen Hume’s Vancouver Sun column on the subject. He’s hardly what you call a card-carrying eco radical)

Perhaps if we made mining companies bear the true costs of extracting gold, copper, silver, zinc, aluminum, platinum and other metals that are so in demand for our high-tech lifestyle, the e-waste recycling business model would prove more attractive.